The border camp at Nevareth's edge simmered beneath the hard light of a northern afternoon, its air sharp with frost and command.
Canvas tents lined the snowy ridges in disciplined rows, their blue banners trembling in the thin wind. Winter Knights moved like silver phantoms between them, armor gleaming, voices low, breath misting white as they patrolled.
There was the steady rhythm of duty here: boots crunching on frost, the ring of steel, the distant clatter of wagons. Until the wind shifted.
Then came the sound.
A thunder of hooves—fast, uneven, desperate.
At first, the sentries thought it a mirage. No sane creature galloped through those frozen passes at such a speed. But then they saw her: a streak of molten gold against the blue-white expanse. Solara, the Fire Queen's mare, tearing across the border's ridged snowfields, her mane blazing like a live flame in the light.
She appeared on the horizon like a ghost.
